As Irish citizens recently voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment and thereby allow legislation for abortion, it earned headlines and worldwide attention during what is being hailed as one of the most important historical events for women in the country today.

As it was, the Eighth Amendment prevented terminations of pregnancies in almost all cases — even those where it was clear a baby would not survive outside the womb, or a woman was pregnant due to rape or incest. That’s because Ireland’s law viewed women and fetuses as having an equal right to life.

The final result was 66.4 percent voting yes to repeal the Eighth Amendment and 33.6 percent casting their votes for no. Notably, the voter turnout for the referendum decision was a record 64.51 percent, suggesting this was not a matter where people thought it was OK not to weigh in with their opinions.

A divisive campaign

Both sides were undoubtedly passionate about the cause, with many people making the brave decision to speak about extremely personal issues ranging from miscarriages to forced intercourse. The race was close during much of the campaign. However, in the later stages, the “yes” side pulled ahead in the polls — perhaps signifying the eventual landslide result.

The pro-abortion rights campaigners — also known as Repealers — became recognizable thanks to their black shirts with “Repeal” across the front in white block letters.

Their campaign messages focused on how legislating for abortion would allow for Ireland to treat women with more compassion by giving them the reproductive care they needed or desired in their home country, instead of making them travel to receive it.

The Repealers also pointed out having the Eighth Amendment in place prevented doctors from making the best decisions about patient care, even at a patient’s request. They could not refer patients to clinics in other countries, which meant women who chose to avail of them were often doing so blindly with no information beforehand.

People in favor of repeal also brought up how nine people travel to the United Kingdom daily and a further three order abortion pills online to take at home in Ireland.

In both cases, getting caught trying to terminate a pregnancy while still in Ireland came with a potential 14-year prison sentence that also extended to doctors who gave their patients more specifics about how to seek abortions.

The anti-abortion campaigners who were against removing the Eighth Amendment from the Irish Constitution were also visible from a distance, thanks to their red-and-pink campaign-branded clothing. They targeted emotions, saying things such as “Abortion stops a beating heart” and “Real compassion doesn’t kill” — the latter a direct rebuttal to the Repealers’ “Yes for Compassion” poster.

“No” campaigners — sometimes called the anti-choice side — also targeted people with disabilities and asserted allowing abortions until up to 12 weeks of pregnancy would have put them at risk of never being born.

Clarification emerged, though, to say an instance that would allow a woman to abort a disabled child would only apply in the case of a fatal fetal abnormality. It is not usually possible to diagnose those within 12 weeks, so the proposed new law will allow terminating those pregnancies until the point of viability for the fetus, which is typically about six months.

The groups involved in the cause

The anti-abortion campaigners split into two distinctive campaigns called Love Both and Save the Eighth, with the former being the slightly less aggressive arm of the two.

They also brought over pro-life Americans who wanted to get involved in a world-changing event — a tactic many people in Ireland viewed as deceptive, since those Americans could only be involved temporarily.

Plus, they took a side on an issue that was arguably unfamiliar to many of them, since there are distinctive differences between Irish and American politics and campaign practices.

The pro-abortion rights side campaigned under a unified umbrella known as Together for Yes. However, there were other groups, such as Amnesty International and Rosa — a United Kingdom-based charity for women’s and girls’ issues — that joined the Repealers and printed materials in support of the cause.

Local politicians also campaigned on both sides of the cause, sometimes in opposition to their party’s stance on the matter.

How a tragic death finally spurred change

The 2012 death of Savita Halappanavar, a dentist living in Ireland who was originally from India, was an event that caused people to finally realize the country’s abortion laws had to change. It was certainly not the only fatality caused by the Eighth Amendment, but it attracted international attention and made other women realize their lives were at stake.

Halappanavar died after contracting septicemia during a miscarriage after being denied an abortion. When she was 17 weeks pregnant, Halappanavar went to the hospital with back pain, where doctors told her she was having a miscarriage. However, medical professionals also told her it would be illegal to terminate the pregnancy while the fetus still had a heartbeat.

She repeatedly requested an abortion, but health care workers denied her, so she had to wait days for the fetus’ heartbeat to stop. By that time, Halappanavar had developed the infection that would ultimately kill her.

Those on the pro-life side argued that Halappanavar died because of the septicemia, not the Eighth Amendment. However, an investigation by Irish health authorities concluded “confusion” over those laws was a contributing factor in the fatality.

While campaigning for the Repeal side, many did so in memory of Savita Halappanavar. They knew change came too late for her, but they could work hard to ensure other women didn’t suffer the same fate.

Repealers unveiled a massive mural in Dublin featuring Halappanavar’s smiling face and the word “Yes” shortly after the vote for repeal went through. People flocked to the site to write messages on sticky notes and attach them to the wall in her memory.

A breakdown of the legal proposals

The proposal is for abortion to be legal in any case up to 12 weeks, but women must undergo a three-day “reflection period” between the time they initially request an abortion and when they receive it. Also, the majority of terminations will happen with abortion pills prescribed by physicians, not surgical abortions.

Abortions after 12 weeks will only be allowed in cases where the mother’s life is seriously at risk, or when the fetus has a condition that prevents its survival after delivery. In either case, two physicians — one being an obstetrician — must certify the fetus has not reached the point of viability. In the former instance, those professionals must confirm a danger exists to the life of the mother as a result of the pregnancy.

What happens next?

Despite the significant margin of loss for the anti-abortion campaigners, they have vowed to oppose the legislation. On a national radio broadcast in Ireland, Bishop Kevin Doran weighed in to say Repeal voters committed sins and should think about going to confession. His comments were understandably controversial.

Health Minister Simon Harris aims to introduce the new legislation before lawmakers go on their summer holidays. Regardless of when it happens, women living in Ireland who find themselves pregnant will soon have autonomy over their bodies at long last — without having to travel somewhere else to seek care.

Success for women in the workforce becomes more prevalent as time goes on. Slowly but surely, women have spoken up with courage and paved the way for others, starting with things like voting rights and entrance into the workforce in industries like nursing and teaching.

Fast-forward to the present, and women can run for president or lead companies as CEOs. In addition to leadership roles, female representation in male-dominated industries is increasing exponentially as well, so much so that these industries might not be male-dominated for long!

Engineering

Women representation has grown significantly in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) industries in recent years. Women in the role of test development engineer increased by 243 percent in the past 40 years!

Although the number of men still outweighs the number of women in engineering, women are needed to bring their unique skills into the workforce. The diversity of mindsets that comes from integrating both men and women into a workplace will increase sustainability, improve infrastructures and solve other challenges.

In addition to test development engineer, roles as an automotive salesperson (154 percent), technical sales professional (133 percent), architect (127 percent) and physicist (116 percent) saw high increases in women.

Trucking

Trucking is a very profitable industry, with roughly 8.9 million U.S. jobs and $671 billion in overall profit. The primary goal of the Women in Trucking Association (WIT) is to attract more female drivers to work in the industry. WIT worked with the National Transportation Institute (NIT) to create an index for monitoring female representation in trucking.

In January 2017, 7.13 percent of drivers were female and 23 percent were in management. By December of 2017, these rates increased to 7.89 percent and 23.75 percent, respectively. Over a quarter of the companies that provided data confirmed an overall 28.7 increase in female drivers!

Public safety

The public safety sector had one of the most substantial increases in women representation with a 118 percent increase in 40 years. Within the public safety sector, social workers, community development specialists and teachers are popular roles among women. Representation also increased in construction (77 percent), consumer goods (71 percent), design (70 percent) and agriculture (67 percent) sectors.

Software and IT

The 2017 Global Gender Gap Report benchmarked 144 countries on their progress toward gender equality and found that it is over 200 years away. One reason is female leadership remains low — however, the software and IT industry had a 27 percent increase in female leaders in the last four decades and a 25 percent increase overall. Business development, project management and strategy are some of the top skills female leaders in this industry are said to contribute.

Studies show women in leadership positions tend to hire more women than male leaders do. Companies with high female representation in leadership positions also have a high number of female employees across the board. Hopefully, women continue to make strides in leadership roles so industries like software and IT can continue their path toward gender equality.

What's next for women?

All roles outside the home used to be male-only jobs until working became the new norm for women. Whether working in a male-dominated field or not, it's always inspiring to see women follow their dreams.

Ultimately, however, we want full equality. Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go before women and men close the gender gap. While that may sound discouraging, it's not all about the numbers. Women have witnessed a lot of progress so far. We must continue our work in the hopes that women face nothing but equality in the future.

The women who wrote the first edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” met at a women’s liberation conference in 1969.

They had gathered to discuss the topic of women and their bodies, but it didn’t take them long to realize they knew little about their health, sexuality or reproduction. Their subsequent efforts to find this information were unsuccessful. Even physicians were unwilling to answer their questions on issues ranging from childbirth to birth control.

An inclusive model for feminist activism

The group’s success can be attributed to the model of feminist activism they illustrate in their book.

Based in consciousness-raising, it is a model that prompts women to explore issues in the context of their personal experiences, the experiences of others and the best factual knowledge available to them. As they revised the book, the collective incorporated the voices of more and more women, and they urged their readers to consider the issues being discussed in terms of their own lives.

In early editions of the book, the collective focused on women’s health and reproduction. As they updated and rewrote the book, they expanded their coverage to include body image, agriculture and food businesses, environmental and occupational health, and violence against women, among other topics.

The authors discussed these issues in a feminist political context. And, they explained how they and others responded to the problems they unearthed.

Importantly, though, the collective did not direct their readers to a particular course of action.

Recognizing that women’s experiences differed, they offered readers guidelines for finding other women who shared their concerns. In addition, they offered a series of questions designed to help women determine the actions they might want to take.

In the 1996 edition, for example, they ask their readers to consider: “Are the women most affected centrally involved in efforts to create solutions?” They add: “Will our work give women a sense of power? Will our work help inform the public and motivate it to work for more improvements in women’s health?”

Most significantly, the collective urged readers to seek out and listen to the voices of women from different backgrounds and circumstances. They included such voices in the pages of their book.

Should we be surprised? Probably not, given that the president has always degraded women and categorized them into two camps: “first-rate pussy”or “fat” and “ugly.” More to the point, we’ve always let him.

In part, yes — at least at the aggressiveness, precision and flagrancy of his assault on the women in his country and around the world. His most recent attack on the push toward true gender equality is the change to the definition of sexual assault.

What is the change?

Under the former definition, sexual assault was considered to be any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without consent of the recipient. The sexual activities included under sexual assault were forced sexual intercourse, child molestation, incest, attempted rape, fondling and forcible sodomy.

Under the new definition, sexual assault means a nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by tribal, federal or state law, including on the occasion where the victim lacks capacity to consent.

The serious issue here is that most state laws are far less stringent than the old definition of sexual assault, and according to RAINN’s database, there are only eight states that require affirmative or freely given consent.

What does this mean for victims of sexual assault?

Repercussions depend on what the state views as sexual assault and how the judicial system enforces the law.

Obvious concerns are that states with weak laws will allow sexual assaults to go unpunished and victims to go without justice, and perhaps even forced into a more vulnerable position to further attacks. Statutory rape and marital rape are only two examples of this.

Statutory Rape: According to loopholes in certain state laws, sexual assault is all but invited. In fact, 25 states do not set a minimum age for when someone can marry, and eight others set it at an age under 16. In states such as Alaska and North Carolina, a 14 year old can get married, whereas in New Hampshire, a 13-year-old girl can get married and a 14-year-old boy can marry.

While a judge’s approval is needed to permit the marriage of minors, this rarely happens in a court system, and pregnancy is often the only reason necessary to permit such a marriage. The changing definition of sexual assault, deferring it to a state-level matter, could allow these loopholes to widen and statutory rape to go unpunished even more regularly.

In Virginia, men who rape wives can simply undergo a bout of therapy to be exempted from prosecution, and in South Carolina, victims of marital rape only have 30 days to report it. The list goes on and on.

It’s not a surprise that Trump’s obvious bias against women should go beyond attacking abortion rights, aid to women in developing countries and closing the gender gap. What is especially concerning is through the administration’s unprecedented changing of the definition of sexual assault, we’re exposing the most vulnerable in our society to even less justice, support and protection.

Shortly after the close of this year’s International Women’s Day, China’s Twitter-like service Sina Weibo shut down Feminist Voices. With 180,000 followers, the group’s social media account was one of the most important advocacy channels for spreading information about women’s issues in China, but in an instant, it was gone. A few hours later, the private messaging app WeChat also shuttered an account for the group. The official reasons for the closures were vague, simply that the accounts had posted content that violated regulations, but the subtext was clear: the country’s highly-monitored media was trying to silence women’s advocates.

It wasn’t the first time Feminist Voices had been censored. Last year, Weibo issued the group a one-month suspension for posting “inappropriate content”—a move that now appears to have been a warning shot. However, says Leta Hong Fincher, author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China, “this time the removal is more sinister as there is no indication that the account will be restored.” Days after it went dark, images appeared online of a group of masked women holding a symbolic funeral for the death of Feminist Voices. Yet the group’s founder Lu Pin (now based in the US) wrote on Twitter that she viewed the ritual not as a funeral, but as a “fantastic carnival,” signifying a rebirth, and she pledged to “reclaim the account by every legal avenue.”

She began to read articles and books on feminism and watching videos on You Tube and she started to notice just how much violence and discrimination there is against women in Cambodia. Worst of all, she started to notice how women and girl’s who spoke out against it, were being ridiculed and attacked.

‘We are really discouraged from speaking out. People really, really value women’s virginity, and they say that you have to be gentle, modest and shy. You can’t have tattoos and slut shaming is really common. If a woman moves in with her boyfriend before she’s married then they’ll say that she is a slut. Rape victims still get blamed and there’s not enough people speaking out because they are ridiculed when they do.’

I wanted to know what had led her to speak up when there was the very real possibility that she too, could be attacked and criticised.

‘The internet helps me a lot,’ she said. ‘When I go on the internet and see so many people speaking about their experiences of sexual harassment, this gave me the courage to speak up.’

However, in her efforts to speak up she has faced criticism. When preparing for her presentation, she was criticised and told that she shouldn’t be speaking about women’s rights.

She has also been dismissed by her friends.

‘They don’t take it seriously,’ she explained. ’Which is most likely either because these things have not happened to them or because they had lived with it for so long that they think that it is normal.

In the United States alone, more than 20 people get abused by their partner every minute. In Ireland, one in five women has been abused by their partner. While most reported forms of domestic abuse are physical, even those get underreported. When it comes to other types of abuse, it can be difficult to get accurate estimates.

There’s a prevailing attitude that if your partner hasn’t struck or raped you, you weren’t really abused. This is, of course, patently untrue. The problem is the signs of physical abuse are often noticeable, but mental abuse is much more difficult to pinpoint. Because of how the abuse occurs, it can be even harder for a woman in the relationship to recognize abuse than an outsider.

The line of what is and isn’t abuse can be hard to draw. The widely accepted definition is “any technique or pattern of behavior used to gain control over another person.” That leaves a lot open to interpretation. Of the kinds of abuse people endure, emotional and psychological can be the hardest to prove.

Who’s at risk?

Everyone is at risk for some kind of abuse. Some people are more at risk in some areas than others, of course. Women are more at risk for physical and mental abuses, and men are more at risk for both mental and financial cases of abuse (financial meaning that their partner uses them for money). However, by and large, women get abused more often than men, by men, although women also commonly get abused by other women in relationships.

There are many different kinds of abuse. These include physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuses, as well as financial. Physical and sexual abuse leave signs, including bruises, cuts and fear. It’s what we most often learn to recognize as abuse, so those are the signs we’re familiar with.

The other kinds of abuse — financial, emotional and psychological — are much more difficult to prove or even notice. Nobody teaches us what to watch for or how to notice the signs of these abuses, and it can make it hard to realize what’s happening. The result is that women can get trapped in these abusive relationships without realizing how terrible they truly are. We should be teaching abuse as more pervasive than just the physical kinds we see, but we can’t do that without being able to recognize the signs for ourselves.

Emotional vs. psychological abuse

Much of the time, the difference between emotional and psychological abuse is vague. They both deal with mental power plays by the abuser, and neither one works without emotional involvement. The easiest way to describe the difference is that emotional abuse makes you feel something about the abuser, while psychological abuse makes you feel something about yourself.

That’s a significant distinction. Emotional abuse sounds like, “If you loved me, you wouldn’t go out with friends.” This kind of statement makes you feel bad for your partner, so you end up not going out and furthering your isolation. Often, that isolation was the exact goal of the entire setup. This type of abuse can wear down a person’s resilience and make them feel like no one else in the world will want them or consider them worthy of their time.

Psychological abuse, however, sounds very different. It might be more along the lines of, “Are you eating that crap again? Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Then, when you ask them about it later, they’ll say something like, “Of course that’s not what I said. You must have misheard me.” Eventually, this can lead to women feeling like they’re losing their minds, and they’ll start to doubt their own judgment.

The distinction between these two is slight, but it’s incredibly important. Being able to tell the difference can help people know what questions to ask when dealing with victims and what to look for when trying to get legal protection for a victim.

Survivors of both emotional and psychological abuse suffer. The ways they suffer might differ, but the truth is that these kinds of abuse usually occur together.

There are real, lasting effects of abuse of any kind. Even so-called “mild” forms of abuse — which aren’t mild at all — can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and many other mental illnesses. Recovering from them sometimes involves having to rebuild an entire life from scratch, sometimes removed from family and friends or in hiding from the abuser. This isolation can make recovery more difficult than it needs to be, and extreme loneliness often increases the chances of a woman returning to the abusive relationship.

Learn the signs and teach others. We all need to know what to do and how to deal with a potentially abusive relationship.

Recent reports from NPR and Politico heed the caution I issued in January: the majority of women candidates, at least at the congressional level, are running against the tide. They are seeking to unseat incumbents, a difficult task made even harder in districts and states that are solidly aligned with the opposing party. In 2018, this narrative is particularly true for Democratic women; they account for nearly all of the increase in women’s candidacies for the U.S. House from 2016 to 2018, and the majority are running as challengers.

A doubling of women in Congress is unlikely to happen after this fall’s election, despite the gains we are likely to see across levels of office and for a diversity of women in 2018. This year, I suggest we could and should evaluate women candidates’ success by a different measure. Win or lose, the women running have the power to disrupt norms of both gender and candidacy.

Founded by 18-year-old Maxine Wint and Natalie Braye and 19-year-old Sophia Byrd and Eva Lewis,Youth for Black Lives has transformed the Black liberation movement in the windy city and beyond. Their first protest, peacefully conducted in July of 2016, shut down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. “It was after the death of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, two black men who had been murdered by the police,” says Wint of the collective’s origins. “I realized I had to use my voice to stand in solidarity with every Black person who was going through such a rough time to cope with the idea that racism is still very prevalent in today’s society. My original plan was to create a sit in or protest for any youth who felt like they needed to get involved or just be around people who were experiencing the same feeling as me, tired and ready for a change.”

'Act of resistance'

According to Wint, her peers’ willingness to take action is what turned her idea into a nationally recognized act of resistance. “I had no intentions of it being such a big thing, but after I posted the flyer on social media that’s just what happened. Peers began to contact me and ask if I needed help and it felt empowering to know that I wasn’t alone,” she says. “After the post I created a group chat with Eva, Sophia and Natalie and we made a list of things that needed to be done in order to execute our plan well.”

Together, the young women mapped out a route for their march and ensured protestors had the resources and legal know-how they would need on-site. Then 1,500 people showed up. “It almost seems like a blur because we organized it just in three days,” Wint remembers. “After that first protest, we thought that a youth organization was something that Chicago needed, so we remained a group.”

Source/ rest: msmagazine.comTess Garcia is a student at the University of Michigan. She is a contributor at Teen Vogue, an intern at V Magazine and Style Editor of the Michigan Daily.

As you board a plane, it’s not uncommon to scrutinize the size of the seats and wonder where exactly your carry-on bags are supposed to fit. But other than that, we generally feel safe nowadays, having gone through several security screenings and identity checks to board the plane.

Another problem looms, especially for women who fly. Sexual harassment is commonplace on airplanes, with both passengers and flight attendants as targets. And the contained space in which it takes place makes the situation even more violating, with the person making unwanted advances — and the people who could stop it — sitting mere inches away.

What’s Causing Airline Sexual Harassment?

We know that many stories of sexual harassment, both on the ground and in the air, involve alcohol. One woman detailed her own terrifying experience with sexual harassment on a plane, noting just how much the man next to her had been drinking.

She said he downed several beverages quickly, perhaps to deal with a fear of flying. But the alcohol soon gave him the courage to make an advance on her, which started verbally and ended with him leaning in for a kiss. Nearby passengers intervened to stop him.

Other passengers have had similar experiences and have even taken legal action against the airlines for continuing to serve alcohol to dangerous passengers. Ayanna Hart said a man on her Delta Air Lines flight kept grabbing her throughout her journey, and the crew did little to stop or reprimand him.

Instead, they gave him “no touching” warnings, telling Hart not to worry about him because he was a frequent flyer.

In another case, a woman sat near an intoxicated man who placed his hand on her thigh and repeatedly squeezed, only stopping when she got up and walked to the flight attendant bay to tell them what was happening. When she received a new seat, it was just behind the man in question, who then continued harassing her.

How Often Does Sexual Harassment Happen on Airlines?

In short, too often. The FBI stated that the number of midair sexual assaults increased by a shocking 66 percent between 2014 and 2017. In 2014, they investigated 38 cases of sexual assault on an aircraft. That number rose to 40 in 2015, 57 in 2016 and 63 in 2017.

The FBI had no explanation as to why the number increased so quickly over a three-year period. And, of course, they said that number represents only reported cases, meaning the figure is likely higher than what they’ve investigated.

A survey conducted by The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA found similar results.

It asked 2,000 flight attendants whether they had dealt with midair sexual assault. Although one out of every five respondents reported such behavior during a flight, law enforcement was notified or brought in less than half of the time.

Unlike passengers, who can move to a new seat, flight attendants have to continue doing their job, regardless of a passenger’s behavior. Many airlines don’t guide their employees in this type of situation, either, so flight attendants don’t have the authority to do much about the harassment.

In the same Travel + Leisure article, one woman explained that the person harassing the staff would have to be endangering the flight’s security to justify a diverted landing. Many flight attendants, then, are left to deal with harassment in a handful of different forms. Some female flight attendants say that passengers hurl inappropriate comments their way, while others touch them — pinching and grabbing them — while they’re serving refreshments or otherwise doing their jobs.

The same goes for male flight attendants, who report unwanted touching and homophobic comments.

A lot of this treatment deals with the fact that society’s judged flight attendants by their looks in the past, and the fact that there is the viewpoint that attendants are there to serve — leading to some passengers to see them as nothing more than objects — just pieces of the scenery on an airline trip.

Another reason why this behavior continues stems from the airlines themselves. From a business perspective, airline passengers are valuable customers, and a flight attendant is a replaceable customer service representative.

And if you know customer service, you’ll know that distinctive motto, “The client is always right.”

For many attendants, this incorrect and outdated viewpoint leads many male and female flight attendants to endure treatment that’s unacceptable.

How Do You Stop Airline Sexual Harassment?

Sexual harassment is something women endure on a daily basis, and an airplane is only another setting for it. The question remains though, what can men and women do to stop this kind of harassment?

One suggestion for rectifying this type of behavior came from one of the flight attendants who dealt with inappropriate behavior herself — she said women should continue the conversation in the hope that awareness will improve the situation.

In the meantime, though, it’s imperative that you remain vigilant while flying, or anywhere else. Don’t be afraid to speak out against someone that’s harassing you, another person or a staff member, wherever that harassment may be taking place.

So we ask ourselves, 100 years later, has enough really changed? Harvey Weinstein has been able to get away with the assault and (allegedly) rape of women for over three decades without consequence until last year. The UK Parliament is still dominated by the pale, stale and male. Our nation has only 208 female MPs out of 650, and only 26 of these women are not white. Just like 100 years ago, there is clearly still room for major improvement.

Whilst this is obviously a centenary to celebrate, I also like to think of it as a turning point in the fight for gender equality.

As a 16-year-old student in London, I have noticed these issues being discussed more and more by girls my age both inside and outside the classroom, signalling an exciting time for the future of feminism. So what are the views of young women today on gender equality? And what do we think needs to be done?

Talking to my friends and fellow students at school, there is always a simple and resonating “no” when asked whether ‘we are there yet’ as a society in terms of gender equality. .

There is still a stereotype that women are still seen as inferior due to their sex. One friend summed it up when she said to me, “in actual fact we have the babies and we’re just as, if not more, emotionally intelligent than men. Attitudes within society need to change to appreciate that this idea of women being of less value or less capable than men is just wrong.”

Whilst there seems to be resounding agreement that we still do not have equality, there is still the question of why some women choose not to identify with feminism. The miscommunication that feminists are active ‘man-haters’ has left some women wary of the label. I loved it when one classmate pointed out: “so what if you are a ‘bra-burning lesbian’? What’s so wrong with that anyway?”

But after a few laughs and dismissing some of the ridiculous stereotypes, the problem that we – as young women today – acknowledge, is that sexism is integrated in all aspects of society. The Brock Turner rape case in the United States, where Turner only ended up spending three months behind bars, is a stark reminder.

The fact that the criminal justice system questioned the victim’s sobriety and clothing during the case goes to show how women are still failing to be taken seriously. And you can see this injustice all over. In government, business, medicine and education, women are still underrepresented and their issues and concerns are often deemed as less important than men’s.

It is clear that despite the major advances in women’s rights, major industries still uphold patriarchal values. But this made me wonder, how much change can we be expected to make if we aren’t working together as women? Are there flaws in modern feminism?

A national poll released in January by the Washington Post/ ABC News predicts that women’s strong preference for Democratic over Republican candidates (57-31) in congressional races could play a decisive role in determining the outcome of the 2018 midterm elections. And a 2017 survey by MTV/PRRI finds that over the past year, young women were significantly more likely than young men to be engaged in political activity, a finding The Brookings Institute suggests could shift “the course of our politics in the 2018 midterm elections and beyond.”

We saw these trends play out in the 2017 elections, especially in the Virginia races for the state’s House of Delegates. Record numbers of Democratic newcomers, including a record number of women, challenged long entrenched Republican incumbents and won, despite having to campaign in highly gerrymandered districts that favored Republicans. A massive gender gap with 13 percent more women than men (61 percent versus 48 percent) voting for the Democratic candidate Ralph Northam for governor; a colossal African American vote, especially from African American women; and a surge among young voters combined to shift the makeup of the House from a Republican supermajority of 66-34 to a 51-49 bare majority. And that outcome was only final after a tie vote for one House seat was broken by literally drawing a name out of a bowl.

In Alabama’s special election to fill a U.S. Senate seat, the gender gap was again decisive. An extraordinary turnout among African American women, 98 percent of whom voted for Democrat Doug Jones, led the way, putting the Senate in play in 2018. Young voters were a significant if not decisive factor in both the Virginia and Alabama elections. In Virginia, the turnout among 18 to 29-year-old voters surged to 34 percent, up from 26 percent in 2013 and double their 17 percent turnout in 2009. Among young voters, 69 percent supported Northam for governor. In Alabama, young voters again mobilized in record numbers, increasing their turnout to 23 percent to help elect Jones.

No group had ever picketed the White House before, according to Jennifer Krafchik, Acting Director, Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument. Many viewed women picketing during wartime as unpatriotic, so the police arrested 70 women on November 14, 1917. Given the choice of a $25 fine or incarceration, they chose jail. “Not a dollar of your fine shall we pay,” protested National Women’s Party co-founder Lucy Burns. “To pay a fine would be an admission of guilt. We are innocent.”

Officers then hauled the women to the Occoquan Workhouse, 25 miles south of Washington in Lorton, Virginia, where jailers fed the “law-breakers” maggot-laden food and stripped, dragged and clubbed them before they housed them in rat-infested cells alongside drunks and thieves. Guards manacled Burns by her hands to the overhead cell bars, forcing her to stand all night. When some of the suffragists went on a hunger strike, jailers force fed them raw eggs and milk through a tube inserted into their nasal passages. The women called this the “Night of Terror.”

Public exposure of the male guards’ abusive treatment galvanized public support for suffrage and created sticky political discomfort for Wilson, who still stonewalled. In 1918, he finally proposed that Congress pass the Susan B. Anthony amendment guaranteeing women suffrage as “a necessary war measure.” (To pressure Wilson to actively advocate for the amendment, the women built “watch fires” in Lafayette Park and burned his speeches.)

Five years earlier, 8,000 “uppity” women had upstaged President-elect Wilson’s inauguration when they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue carrying banners proclaiming “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Their leader, attorney Inez Milholland, wearing white robes astride a magnificent white horse, invoked Joan of Arc. People on the sidelines, mostly men, hurled jeers and nasty insults, deriding these dogged women as “unwomanly,” “unsexed” and “pathological.” About 100 marchers were hospitalized after suffering injuries from the hostile onlookers. When Wilson disembarked at Union Station, disappointed at the size of his own greeting party, he asked where everyone was. “On the avenue,” came the answer, “watching the suffragists’ parade.”

Throughout history, there have been a variety of ways people have discriminated against mothers. In the 1800s, they were barred from taking certain positions based on the belief that moms should stay at home with their kids. Later, the word pregnancy was even disallowed on the television show I Love Lucy because it was considered too vulgar.

In 1993, there was some progress with the passing of the Family Medical Leave Act that guaranteed maternity leave. Even so, that time away from the workplace wasn’t paid. Then, four years later, now-Vice-President Mike Pence expressed his opinion that kids with two working parents suffer developmental problems. Unfortunately, such discrimination is still present in the U.S. and abroad.

Work-related discrimination suits from mothers are on the rise

Legal professionals say there’s been an uptake in the number of lawsuits filed by mothers who spend time in the workplace, and some fathers, too. They note there are often persistent gender-related biases that cause incorrect assumptions about how men and women should behave. While filing documentation in their suits, women allege they were treated differently than their male counterparts and often looked down upon for adjusting their hours to take care of kids.

Even when women with kids show no signs of being less productive than employees who do not have children, they can still be let go from their jobs — much to their shock and dismay. A woman from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who was the primary caregiver for her disabled daughter, lost her job at an advice center.

The woman said she did not ask for special treatment, and so was especially shocked when she was told she no longer had a position with the company. An investigation into the incident — which resulted in a financial award to the lady in question — confirmed a link between her role in caring for her daughter and her job loss.

That was ruled as discrimination because an existing law in that part of the world protects disabled people from being treated differently than others at work, as well as the individuals who look after them.

Some US states are making improvements

State legislation has also shown some promising signs. In 2014, New York lawmakers ruled that employers must provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers, which is an improvement to an existing law that merely made discrimination against them illegal. Also, a breakdown of protections by state shows that in Utah, workplaces must accommodate women who need to breastfeed.

Discrimination outside the workplace

Pregnant women or moms being treated differently at their jobs is a very familiar type of discrimination. However, it’s far from the only kind of inequality women experience when it comes to children.

For example, in China, a woman has to show a marriage certificate before the birth of her child is legally recognized. Also, in parts of Canada, women who are indigenous people regularly face discrimination based on stereotypes, particularly for how they treat their kids. Some even fear losing the right to take care of them, resulting in the children going into foster care.

What can we do to stand up for mothers’ rights?

Regardless of whether you’re a mother, you probably feel spurred into action by the injustices mentioned above. So, the question that’s probably on your mind is, “How can I help?”

There are still several places in the U.S. — including North Carolina, Wyoming and Florida — that do not offer any state-specific protections for pregnant women at work. If you live in one of those places, it’s worth seeing if you can get involved in local efforts for change. Otherwise, turn your attention to social media and spread awareness to people who may not know how some women still face discrimination.

Also, if you see or hear a woman receiving unfair treatment due to being pregnant or a mother, speak up, especially if the incident occurs at your workplace. Acknowledging that a problem exists is one of the first steps to solving it, and if you simply ignore a rights violation, others might do the same. Finally, believing a victim of discrimination is an excellent way to show support as you lend a listening ear and display a desire to enact positive change.

In spring 2013, HBO conducted a sly experiment on the “elite” TV-viewing public. It aired two new shows – both buddy dramas – back to back. Each was conceived as a short, self-contained season. Each had a single talented and idiosyncratic director for the entire season, and each dispensed with the convention of having a large team of writers in favour of a unified authorial vision. Both shows appeared to belong to one genre, but gestured at several others. Both used excellent actors to anchor a meandering, semi-disciplined style. And both ended by reasserting the romantic bonds of friendship. Those shows were True Detective, and Doll and Em.

Their critical reception was drastically different. One was analysed and investigated to the point of parody. The other show – a much tighter work of art – was breezily and inaccurately labeled a “satire” and forgotten. To be explicit, the show about boys got way too much credit, and the show about girls got way too little.

This is how we approach “male” versus “female” work. Let’s call it the “male glance”– a narrative corollary to the “male gaze”. We all do it, and it is ruining our ability to see good art. The effects are poisonous and cumulative, and have resulted in a huge talent drain. We have been hemorrhaging great work for decades, partly because we are so bad at seeing it.

[…]
The male glance is how comedies about women become “chick flicks”. It’s how discussions of serious movies with female protagonists consign them to the unappealing stable of “strong female characters”. It’s how soap operas and reality television become synonymous with trash. It tricks us into pronouncing mothers intrinsically boring, and it quietly convinces us that female friendships come in two strains: conventional jealousy, or the even less appealing non-plot of saccharine love. The third narrative possibility, frenemy-cum-friend, is only slightly less shallow. Who consumes these stories? Who could want to?
[…]

The male glance is the opposite of the male gaze. Rather than linger lovingly on the parts it wants most to penetrate, it looks, assumes, and moves on. It is, above all else, quick. Under its influence, we rejoice in our distant diagnostic speed. It feeds an inchoate, almost erotic hunger to know without attending – to reject without taking the trouble of analytical labour because our intuition is so searingly accurate that it doesn’t require it. Here again, we are closer to the amateur astronomer than to the explorer. Rather than investigate or discover, we point and classify.

While disasters are by definition devastating, sometimes they can lead to changes that are a small silver lining. The 2004 tsunami ended a civil conflict in Indonesia that had left 15,000 dead. The 14th century’s plague, probably the most deadly disaster in human history, set free many serfs in Europe, forced wages for laborers to rise, and caused a fundamental shift in the economy along with an increased standard of living for survivors.

One hundred years ago, a powerful strain of the flu swept the globe, infecting one third of the world’s population. The aftermath of this disaster, too, led to unexpected social changes, opening up new opportunities for women and in the process irreversibly transforming life in the United States.

The virus disproportionately affected young men, which in combination with World War I, created a shortage of labor. This gap enabled women to play a new and indispensible role in the workforce during the crucial period just before the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women suffrage in the United States two years later.

[…]

Flu brought more women into the workforce

The severity of the epidemic in the U.S. was enough to temporarily shut down parts of the economy in 1918. In New England, coal deliveries were so severely affected that people, unable to keep their homes heated, froze to death at the height of winter. During the 1918 flu outbreak, researchers estimate businesses in Little Rock, Arkansas, saw a decline of 40 to 70 percent.

The worker shortage caused by the flu and World War I opened access to the labor market for women, and in unprecedented numbers they took jobs outside the home. Following the conclusion of the war, the number of women in the workforce was 25 percent higher than it had been previously and by 1920 women made up 21 percent of all gainfully employed individuals in the country. While this gender boost is often ascribed to World War I alone, women’s increased presence in the workforce would have been far less pronounced without the 1918 flu.

Women began to move into employment roles that were previously held exclusively by men, many of which were in manufacturing. They were even able to enter fields from which they had been banned, such as the textile industry. As women filled what had been typically male workplace roles, they also began to demand equal pay for their work. Gaining greater economic power, women began more actively advocating for various women’s rights issues – including, but not limited to, the right to vote.

[…]

Outside of work, women also became more involved in community decision-making. Women’s changing social role increased support for women’s rights. In 1919, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs was founded. The organization focused on eliminating sex discrimination in the workforce, making sure women got equal pay and creating a comprehensive equal rights amendment.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), analyzed facility standards and office-based surgery regulations in all 50 states, looking specifically at the disparities in the way abortion facilities are regulated in comparison to other medical facilities. Those researchers found that laws around abortion facilities are “more numerous, expansive and burdensome than laws regulating facilities that provide other medical procedures.”

Most common among these are TRAP laws—short for the targeted regulation of abortion providers. Their purpose is to shut down abortion facilities by placing medically unnecessary requirements on them, many of which are too expensive or burdensome for abortion providers operating on limiting funding to be able to meet. Some of these requirements include requiring providers have nearby hospital admitting privileges, mandating hallway dimensions for abortion clinics and requiring clinics to have contracts with local ambulance companies.

In the years between 2013, when the omnibus abortion bill HB 2 was signed into law in Texas, and 2016, when the Supreme Court struck it down, more than half of the state’s 41 abortion clinics were shut down and could no longer offer abortion services to the states millions of women of reproductive age. HB 2 set off a wave of TRAP laws across the country, however, which remain in place—and many clinics that shutter under these laws never open again, even if the laws are repealed or struck down.

The consequences for the last five years lawmakers spent hyper-policing of women’s access to crucial health care have been steep—pregnancy and birth-related deaths in the U.S. have been on the rise, disproportionately so in states with more stringent abortion laws. And extraneous and politically-motivated regulations placed on women’s health clinics don’t just burden and endanger women’s health—they also reinforce existing unfair stigma around the procedure and those who provide it, endangering the lives of abortion providers and their staff as well as abortion advocates.

The Yellow Wallpaper enlightens the reader on women’s health, motherhood, mental breakdown and its treatment, as well as feminism and gender relations in late 19th-century America. Though many details are changed, the story is semi-autobiographical, drawing on Gilman’s own health crisis and particularly her fraught relationship with Dr Silas Weir Mitchell – who carved a reputation for treating nervous exhaustion following his experiences as a Civil War doctor – and who was brought in to treat her in 1886. In Gilman’s own words, he drove her to “mental agony” before she rejected his treatment and began once again to write.

Gilman’s short story is a straightforward one. The narrator is brought by her physician husband to a summer retreat in the countryside to recover from her “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency”. There she is to rest, take tonics, air and exercise – and absolutely forbidden to engage in intellectual work until well again. The house is “queer”, long abandoned and isolated. The room her husband selects as their bedroom, though large, airy and bright, is barred at the window and furnished with a bed that is bolted to the floor. The wallpaper is torn, the floor scratched and gouged. Perhaps, the narrator muses, it had once been a nursery or playroom.

It is the room’s wallpaper, a “repellant” and “smouldering unclean yellow”, with “sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” that forms the centrepiece of the story. The narrator spends much of her days being cared for – and often left alone – in this room, reading, attempting to write (though the subterfuge this involved leaves her weary, she noted) and, increasingly, watching the wallpaper, as it starts to take on a life of its own.

A Michigan Court has now stacked several full lifetimes atop the prison sentence of Larry Nassar. This is a man who, in November 2017, pleaded guilty to three incidences of “criminal sexual conduct” performed between 2009 and 2011 while working at a gymnastics club. The charges refer to his abuse of three young women specifically, who were all between the ages of 13 and 15 while they were under Nassar’s care. His total victims may number 265 or more. The first 60 years of his sentence are for child pornography alone.

Larry Nassar is not a good person. Unfortunately, there are others like him out there. But that’s not the full story — the full story must also include the people who protect the bad guys and sell their victims up the river.

Vanishing oversight

There are forces in America who want to make it more difficult to drag execrable behavior into the daylight. As we speak, the state of Utah is under pressure from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to pass legislation to turn Utah into a so-called “two-party consent state” for audio and video recording. Concerned citizens are now rushing to their phones to let state representatives how they feel about this development.

Technologies like the dashboard camera and the hidden voice recorder have helped many victims of all manners of crimes take their stories public with compelling evidence. Progressives in Utah are calling out H.B. 330 — so-called “Communication Interception Amendments” — as what they are: legal protections for known abusers.

If this bill becomes law, it would make it illegal for citizens to record their private conversations and “interviews” with bishops. Having already taken several black eyes from dispatches like MormonLeaks and the Mormon Stories Podcast, the Mormon Church in Utah wants to make it far more difficult for the truth to reach receptive and sympathetic ears.

We can’t carry on as though churches have a monopoly on abusive behavior — that only reduces the perceived scale of the situation. As Larry Nassar, unfortunately, helped prove, abuse can happen anywhere there’s temptation to leverage one’s power over others. Nassar worked in close quarters with young women frequently without oversight of any kind.

Bishops in the Mormon Church have the opportunity to put their victims in similar corners. These young men and women are made to feel isolated and vulnerable. And after that, even if they do drum up the courage to go public, they’re forced to do battle in public court against a church or other institution that wields a legal department similar in size to that of a small sovereign nation.

What needs to change

Information has come to light that seems to indicate Michigan State University knew about some of the claims against Nassar — possibly for decades before his crimes went public — and never said anything about it to the authorities.

After lawsuits become ripe for the plucking is not the time to discuss child sexual abuse. It is morally correct for victims of this type of crime to receive recompense to alleviate some of their suffering, but these reactive, knee-jerk measures, applied retroactively like Band-Aids, make American culture and its pretenses of exceptionalism look dangerous, naïve and stupid.

It’s not hard to see why many are making the incendiary suggestion that American society is in collapse. Can you possibly doubt it? America is not beyond redemption — not even remotely — but it seems the most visible appendages of our culture and institutions have taken an unpleasant trajectory lately.

America has always had a complex and embarrassing relationship with sex, but the #MeToo movement and the now-nearly-countless tales of abuse having been swept under the rug have finally begun to turn the tide. We have a movement now — something meaty we can sink our pitchforks into. But why did it have to come this far?

Crimes go unpunished in America regularly in the name of religious, political or personal convenience. Insofar as the world still looks to us for moral leadership, we are failing them miserably.

There’s no real lesson here, either, except perhaps to watch out for confirmation bias. We look for, and tend to see, only the bad guys we’ve been specifically trained to look for, after all. Most of us have, at one point or another, been instructed to “See something, say something” — at an airport about unattended luggage, for example, or perhaps about a neighbor who looks a little too Middle-Eastern for our president’s liking.

As a species, we are forever being encouraged to dispense our powers of observation, suspicion and surveillance in every direction except the ones that matter the most. We vilify immigrants because that’s what inexplicably charismatic politicians say to do. We vilify the working poor because we work hard and assume they do not. We vilify rape victims because we assume there is more to the story.

Our moral compasses have failed us, clearly, except for one: the court of public opinion. And that can be treacherous ground. Technology enables us now to bundle our grievances into movements — to connect victims from different places and different walks of life in common cause and common discomfort. Are we turning a corner, finally, toward mutual trust? Things are going to hurt for a bit longer, and the list of those hurt by sexual predators is, unfortunately, likely to get longer, too, but this particular type of secret, this kind of social harm, at least, is getting harder to hide by the day.

Across the country, activists are working to change that. Formerly incarcerated women affected by these outrageous policies and their allies are pushing for bills to guarantee sufficient access to menstrual products for incarcerated people in a number of states, including Arizona, Maryland, Virginia, Nebraska, and Alabama. And the movement is gaining steam: in Arizona, HB 2222 has gained significant public attention from lawmakers, the public and the media. Alabama’s version of the bill, HB 363, is currently awaiting action in the legislature.

Feministing caught up with up with activists Joe Watson of the American Friends Service Committee of Arizona(AFSCAZ) and Vegas Longlois of Greater Birmingham Period (GBP) to talk about the campaigns in their states. Both Longlois and Watson have personal ties to incarcerated people in Arizona and Alabama. Watson was himself formerly incarcerated, and Longlois has a relative currently in prison. Both make clear that this fight goes beyond pads and tampons to encompass questions about the dignity and humanity of incarcerated people.

I asked Watson and Longlois to share their thoughts about the motivations behind these policies and the relationship between menstrual equity and other prison reform and abolition movements.